Irish rock icons U2 re-record past songs. Songs Of Surrender features new renditions of 40 songs from their discography, a career-spanning repertoire that ranges from the 1980 non-album single 11 O’Clock Tick Tock to Get Out Of Your Own Way, a single from their last album Songs Of Experience (2017). Frontman Bono and guitarist The Edge handled most of the re-recordings during the pandemic lockdown, although bassist Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr play on some songs. The album also serves as a companion to Bono’s memoir released in November 2022, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. Most of the tracks have been stripped down to their bare essentials, with minimal instrumentation, putting Bono’s voice front and centre.

In February 25th 1984, ‘Jump’ by Van Halen started a five-week run at No.1 on the US singles chart, (a No.7 hit in the UK). Singer David Lee Roth wrote the lyrics after seeing a television news report about a man who was threatening to commit suicide by jumping off a high building. Roth thought that one of the onlookers of such a scene would probably shout “go ahead and jump”.

On March 20 1960, Elvis Presley started his first recordings since being discharged from the US Army. A 12 hour session in a Nashville recording studio produced his next No.1 single, ‘Stuck On You’. Scotty Moore and Bill Black, who had quit Presley’s touring band in 1957, were in the studio with him for the last time. In 1961, Elvis Presley started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Surrender’, his fifth No.1 of the 60s. It also made No.1 in the UK. The song was based on the 1911 Italian song, ‘Return To Sorrento.’